32. Now
32
NOW
Brooke sat at the community table in the bothy in the early hours of the morning, writing by headlamp. Even the cold and dark morning, coupled with Jack asleep beside her, wasn’t enough to keep her tucked into her warm sleeping bag—the pull of the words inside her was stronger.
Oliver emerged from the sleeping room and gave her a nod, clearly not up for conversation this early. His camp stove was already on the wooden picnic table and he pulled out his lighter, the click and hiss sounding as he lit it.
Brooke kept writing, the details of the trail pouring from her, the stories she remembered from Mhairi’s interviews and her own research bubbling to the surface, also wanting to make it onto the page.
Jack walked in, pulling a hoodie over his head. His hair fell over his forehead and his stubble had grown in dark along his jawline. He smiled when he saw her, a tentative, raw look. “Morning.”
“Morning,” she breathed. Brooke felt almost shy around him after last night, the energy charged between them.
He lit his camp stove, setting the lighter down on the table with a clatter and stretching his arms above his head, a sliver of skin peeking out at his waist.
Oliver dug out a satellite internet console, distracting Brooke.
She didn’t care too much about being off the grid, but also, she was a millennial. “You have internet? I want internet.”
He grinned at her and ran his hand over the wispy beard along his chin. “When I’m done, you’re welcome to it.”
“Thank you.”
By now the other hikers were awake, setting up camping stoves with morning voices and disheveled hair, rummaging through packs.
“Morning,” Murray said. He picked up the tin from the night before and settled into a meal of chocolate.
“Breakfast of champions,” Brooke said.
He toasted her with a raised candy wrapper.
Anya opened jars of peanut butter and salsa, left on the shelf by earlier hikers, and sniffed them. She recapped the peanut butter but brought the salsa with her to the picnic table. Oliver studied the bursting bulletin board before rearranging the flyers on top with a blue push pin.
Brooke tucked her notebook away and filled her stove with water to boil. While she made coffee and oatmeal, she chatted with Cat and Nat, who were still beside themselves, discussing fantastic destination wedding locations even though Nat insisted they were getting married in her parents’ backyard.
When Oliver was finished, Brooke connected to his internet and pulled up her email.
To: Brooke Sinclair
From: Charlotte Lane
Subject: Exciting Opportunity! Call me!
Hi Brooke,
We just landed the memoir for Jennifer Aniston and I put your name forward as her ghostwriter. This opportunity is going to go fast! I should mention it would require being in LA for a few months, starting this fall. I know you’re out on the trail, but give me a ring as soon as you’re back in range.
xo Charlotte
Brooke took a deep breath in through her nose and held it. Jennifer Fucking Aniston. Brooke’s brain swirled with images of Friends and her favorite rom-coms. Of the absolute uproar that would happen over this book. Instead of conducting interviews in the publisher’s conference room, she might do them… ohmygod…in Jennifer’s house . They would be on a first-name basis. She might call her Jen.
Having this book on her list of credentials would mean Brooke could get any job she wanted after this. To be part of a project with this much name recognition was the literal dream.
But… whose dream?
Her excitement wilted. She’d been on big projects before and they were all-consuming; this one would be even more so. The amount of research, the sheer amount of source materials, would be staggering. Brooke wouldn’t have time to sleep, let alone work on her own manuscript.
Even though it didn’t have a shape yet, wasn’t anything , her heart ached at the idea of putting this off again. Of going back to writing someone else’s story in place of her own. Brooke knew the exact cost of renouncing a dream. She’d been paying it with ennui and restlessness for seven years.
She crossed to the window. Outside, the sky was a misty blue and the craggy hill blanketed in green rose from the water. The vibrant grass waved in the wind, green and yellow rippling under the shadows of clouds rolling above, but she couldn’t find any comfort in the idyllic setting.
Jack met her at the window, resting a hand on the counter top and effectively creating a little bubble from the rest of the group. “You alright?”
She wanted to tell him the news. Wanted to shout it from the roof of the bothy. And she also wished she’d never checked her email. “I got a ghostwriting opportunity. Like bigger than anything I’ll ever do again in my career.”
That little crease appeared between his eyebrows.
“It would be a ton of money and huge for me professionally.”
“But you don’t look happy.”
Brooke sighed and ran her thumb back and forth over the handle of her mug. “I’d have to be in LA for a few months. It’d be around-the-clock work. I wouldn’t have time to write my own stories.”
“Ah.”
“But my own stuff—it’s a couple chapters. It’s literally nothing.”
He ran his hands up her arms and squeezed, a comfort and encouragement all in one. “That’s not how you felt last night.”
She looked up into his dark gaze, the light from the window casting a shadow of his frames across his cheek. She chewed on her lip. He was right. It’d felt damn good writing again. Simultaneously cathartic and freeing.
“Brooke.” Jack wrapped an arm around her waist. “I’m not just saying this because I want you to stay here, even though I do.” He moved his other hand to her back, sliding up, his thumb brushing the curve of her neck. “Take a chance on yourself. Trust that the thing you love will take you where you need to be.”
Jack had always cared for her in a way she didn’t recognize: without expectations or requirements. Encouraged her in a way that made her feel like he believed in her, not like he was running ahead, ready to move the goalposts.
That kind of love had been so comfortable. Not boring, but a safe place to recharge. Where she didn’t have to be perfect—she just had to be herself.
“Trust that the story you want to tell is just as important as theirs.”
She scoffed. “No one’s as important as she is.”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. “ You are.”